An automated directory assistance (DA) system can be a telephone-based system that provides a caller with a phone number and/or address of a desired business, government or residential listing. The automated DA system can be used to complement or replace the traditional human operated 411 services. An automated DA system can also be a web-based system that provides a user with a phone number and/or address of a desired business, government or residential listing that is rendered on a display.
A typical telephone-based automated DA system includes a speech recognizer and a search engine. The speech recognizer receives a user's utterance and transforms it into text form. The text then serves as the basis for a query that is used by the search engine to find the desired listing in a database of listings. A typical web-based system includes a search engine that takes typed text as the basis for a query to find the desired listing in a database of listings.
One main problem regarding both telephone-based DA systems and web-based DA systems is search result disambiguation. In general, business listing search results can often be disambiguated using street name or neighborhood information. For example, to find a particular coffee shop among all the coffee shop chain entries that a search engine returns, the DA system can disambiguate by requesting location information, such as street name or neighborhood information. In general, a chain of coffee shops are distributed over large areas. Thus, a user can differentiate by a targeted location. However, disambiguating residential search results using street name or neighborhood information may not be sufficient. For example, “Mike Smith” is a common name where multiple people with the same name can live in the same neighborhood, on the same street, next door to each other or even in the same building. Disambiguating residential listings by street name or neighborhood information may be unsuccessful. In addition, oftentimes a user does not know the exact address of a person.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.